Beauty and Bathrooms
by FanfictMONSTER
Summary: In which Dean has a small breakdown and Castiel fixes him up- in more ways than one. (Spoilers through Season 5!)


The motel bathroom tiles were cool under Dean's bare feet as he stood over the sink, a strong arm on either side of the basin to brace himself, neck and head sunken down farther than usual. His head was lowered but his eyes were concentrated on themselves in the mirror as his breathing came steady and definitively, giving Dean the appearance that he was relaxed. He wasn't.

He hated when Sam left the room to go run an errand or do some research or whatever the hell else he did out there. Any time Sam closed that door, the nerves would rev up; the thoughts would start to churn around. Because when Sam left, that was danger time. That was when Dean was left alone with his own thoughts, and recently, those thoughts weren't too peachy. It used to be that Sam would leave, and Dean would kick back and relax, take a nap, flip through the erotica channels on the tv with a half interested smirk, hell, even do some research of his own with the journal. But ever since he came back from, you know, freakin' Hell, the whole relaxing thing hadn't come too easy. Dean was consumed with voices that had always been repressible, even ignorable if he really tried. Not that they didn't get to him, but he could always pull through. Not now. They were strong and they were fueled, because now it was more than meaningless taunts and rude awakenings about himself. This time around, the things they told him were nasty and destructive. And worse, much, much worse- they were true and justifiable. It was constant and exhausting to endure, but Dean maintained his game face- drawn eyebrows and a slight pout that occasionally melted into a cocky smirk or a little smile. And it was tearing him apart.

Now he stood in the small and dirty white bathroom of some run down, hooker-run motel, looking at himself steadily in the mirror, swallowing and working his jaw a little as his mind drowned in the rising tide of self-condemnation.

_You don't deserve to be alive right now, you sorry son of a bitch. You aren't even supposed to be. You pretend to think you're so high and mighty, but you're the worst example of self-confidence that ever walked this Earth, aren't you?_

Dean stared at himself with knit eyebrows, his lips moving a little, tightening and untightening as his teeth gritted a little. This he could endure, but it was a slippery slope, and he clenched his hands around the basin, bracing himself for the coming fight to control his own mind. He knew by now that's what this always escalated to.

_You're pathetic; so disgustingly weak and useless. And compared to Sam and Dad? You're a disappointment, you know that? Sammy was always dad's favorite. You… you're nothing but his good little soldier. God, you try so hard. It's sad, really. Dad thought so, too. _

"That's enough," Dean muttered through his teeth, body rocking a little as his chest moved quicker with his breathing. He didn't break eye contact with himself.

_And all those souls… Dad didn't give up. But you did. After just forty years. How does that feel? You're nothing special. You think Sammy's turning into a monster? Have you looked in the mirror for more than a few seconds just to check your hair? Or are you afraid of what you'd see? You tortured them, Dean. You destroyed them. And you liked it._

"Shut up." Dean was breathing through his nose, his mouth closed tight over gritting teeth.

_You always thought that if you were sent downstairs you would be able to handle it. Kick all those sons of bitches' asses and take names, didn't you? You were never going to break. You weren't going to break. You were going to be the one to endure hellfire and baffle all those demons down there. But so easily… you screamed and twisted and shattered just like everyone else who has ever been sent down and everyone who ever will. Bonus: you're a murderer. But worse than that… you're a coward. I'd just off myself now if I were you. Save everyone else the pain that you're gonna bring them, you pathetic son of a bitch. _

Dean's vision blurred violently as his fist shattered the glass into pieces, the sharp sting gracing his knuckles and the sound loud and delicate, a thousand cracks all at once as sparkling glass dust poured down to the countertop and small little chunks and slices of Dean's reflection launched themselves outward and all over the floor. He stood there in the middle of what seconds before had been his face, his chest rising and falling dramatically and his knuckles burning. He could feel warmth and stickiness slowly engulfing his fingers of the injured hand hanging at his side. His eyes pricked with rising tears and his face was pained as he tried to hold them at bay. There was a small cut on his cheek- he could see it in the part of the mirror that didn't have a massive ripple of cracks and missing pieces. He could also see the face of Castiel.

Dean spun around, inadvertently putting most of his weight on a shard of glass behind him.

"Son of a bitch!" He lifted his foot up again with a small inhale of pained breath.

"…Careful." Cas said dumbly.

Dean looked up at him, eyebrows knit incredulously in the most sarcastic expression he could muster given the circumstances, while inside he tried in a near panic to scrape himself up and pull himself together.

"Wow, what would I do without you, Cas?" Damn it- his voice was hoarse and it cracked a little, and he could tell right away that Cas knew. Maybe he didn't know why exactly Dean had just done what he'd done, but he knew that there was something wrong inside of Dean right now, and Dean hated how Cas was looking at him.

"What the hell are you even doing here?" He literally forced his voice into a lower and gruffer register, trying in irritation to cover any trace of vulnerability left there. But as well as he could adjust his voice, he found himself unable to meet Cas's eyes, a position in which he was never found. Usually it was Cas looking wistfully off to the right or dramatically out a window or something. But looking another person in the eyes with confidence when Dean could barely contain the war still going on inside of him was suddenly the most difficult thing. He was a freaking mess.

"You called me." Cas responded with an unchanged expression. Called him? Yeah, right. He'd been a little preoccupied with himself the past few minutes. Cas was studying Dean's face, and so closely and with such intent that if Dean hadn't been wrestling with his inner thoughts, he probably would have made some comment about the never-ending personal space situation.

"No I didn't," was his reply instead, spoken through a frown. His hurt foot was still hovering above the tiles and a little drip of blood finally made its way to the floor. Dean winced a little, and Cas's warm blue eyes traveled down to the cut and then back up to Dean's emerald ones, face still showing no signs of changing expression.

"Yes you did. With your mind."

"Yeah, okay, Professor X-"

"You did, Dean. You called me for help."

Dean paused, then frowned at the angel in his bathroom, eyes narrowing slightly as his mind rushed, tearing back through the conversation he'd had with himself minutes ago. (When he thought of it like that he sounded like a freakin' nut job.) Nope, he definitely had not thought of Cas once in all of that. Not consciously, at least.

"Yeah, well maybe that was just wishful thinking on your part, buddy." Dean gave a little sarcastic wink, and as predicted, Cas frowned in that confused way that showed that the little computer or whatever the hell worked his brain was calculating and coming up empty. Finally, he came up with a response.

"I did not wish for you to call me, Dean, and even if I did, the mere act of hoping for somethi-"

"Yeah, yeah, alright, you can shut up, Spock- I was making a joke."

Castiel tilted his head a little to the side. "Spock? …I do not understand-"

"-That reference. Yeah, sorry. Just forget it."

Dean looked off to the side as a sudden silence filled the small space. He could feel Cas watching him. A few seconds that felt a whole lot longer passed, and then Cas said in an un-altered tone, "Why did you do this to yourself, Dean?"

Dean felt an unexpected tug in his chest at those words as a swell of emotion suddenly rose up and then carefully, dangerously back down, like it was still watching him. Waiting for its next chance to spring. Dean was suddenly at a loss for words. What could he begin to say to explain this? This feeling of despair and dread for the next day- how it felt to hate every time you caught a glimpse of you in the mirror or how it felt to lie awake and wish that in the morning someone would find your body there instead of waking up again and living another minute.

So he spoke gruffly and in a sort of tight voice, "I was just a little pissed at the mirror." Looking back up at the angel with a raised eyebrow, Dean was suddenly hit with frustration, anger, sadness… and he swallowed to both tame and direct the annoyance he was suddenly feeling toward Castiel for even being there. Why was he there? Why did he always have to be up Dean's ass and interfering in his life?

"Look, this is none of your business, Cas. I don't need you here… right now." He added the last two words on because the few seconds without them sounded too harsh. Cas blinked his sapphire eyes once, and he reminded Dean of a hurt and confused child. God, Dean was mood swinging like a girl on her monthly.

It was quiet again for a minute, and the Castiel spoke again, bluntly.

"You think you deserve to be hurt. Why?"

Dean was taken by surprise, and his gaze snapped to meet Cas's as another drop of blood landed on the tiles. Cas looked at Dean steadily and patiently. Well, he sure was to the point, wasn't he? What the hell could Dean say to that? The truth?

"Well, Cas…" Dean talked slowly, acting like he was cautiously testing out the words in a soft voice, a hint of sarcasm snaking through the sentence. "Maybe… because…" Dean took a deep breath in and blew it out again, raising his eyebrows and locking eyes with the angel. "I dunno, I screw up everything I care about?" And everyone, he thought, but he didn't say that part. He didn't know why he was saying this. Cas knew this already.

Another quiet pause filled the gap between the two men, and Dean was just thinking how awkward and irritating this whole experience was, when Cas reached out and took Dean's wrist forcefully, but just gently enough that it wouldn't hurt.

"I will help to fix this."

Dean tugged back a little, but it became evident very quickly that Castiel was not planning on letting go. Dean gave him his best resistance face.

"How? Your mojo's all screwed to hell." Dean said bluntly.

"Humans fix themselves without… mojo… don't they?" Cas retorted, raising one eyebrow a little.

"What? You mean like with band-aids and asprin? Yeah, sure they do." Dean laughed a little, rudely, looking away. Cas didn't lose his focus on Dean.

"Yes. I will help you, Dean. Do not move."

Castiel released his iron grip on Dean's wrist and walked over to crouch beside him, his shoes crunching in the glass and glass dust. He opened the medicine cabinet underneath the sink and frowned. "….I do not understand. Is this not where you keep your medical supplies?"

"This is a motel room, Cas. It's not my personal picket fenced- dream home."

"… You do not have supplies of your own?"

Dean sighed and looked at the angel tiredly. "You're puttin' up a fight, aren't you?"

Cas stood there quietly for a moment, and the next time Dean blinked he was gone.

"...What the-….?"

Damn him. When the initial annoyance at being poofed at vanished, so did Dean's fake cockiness. He was suddenly alone again, and suddenly hated himself even more for pushing Cas away. It had only been a few seconds, but Dean was already reverting back to his miserable self. Cas had only wanted to help, and moreover, he was going to make sure Dean wasn't alone with his destructive self, whether that had been his intention or not. That damn fear began to trickle back in, creeping down his back and infecting his mind. He would never say it, never. It took impossible things to make him admit it to even himself. But he wanted Cas back. He wanted someone with him. Dean began to panic internally, and told himself to calm down. He would work this out.

And suddenly, there Cas was again with his dumb messy hair and that wide-eyed look of eternal aloofness on his face.

"I found it," he offered, slightly raising a hand clutching the Winchester's makeshift First Aid kit from the Impala trunk. Dean let out a little breath of badly disguised and desperately denied relief.

Cas moved closer and put the kit down on the counter, and then reached out more gingerly than before to take Dean's wrist. He pushed up Dean's long sleeve, spotted with blood, and brought the hand close to his face to inspect it. Dean watched the angel with wariness and hesitation, his body leaning away slightly. Cas was touching him so carefully, like he thought Dean was about to break or something.

Cas suddenly looked up to forcefully lock eyes with Dean. "Sit," he commanded.

Dean almost argued just for the sake of arguing, but suddenly the world felt kind of heavy and he felt tired. So he hopped up onto the counter with a minimal amount of energy.

For about a minute, Castiel worked quietly and studiously, and Dean watched him pick the little glass triangles and rectangles out of his bloody hand. He watched Cas's eyebrows knit and his mouth work a little bit, almost undetectably. Dean focused on Cas through the winces. After a few minutes, he parted the silence with words.

"Hey… Cas?"

"Mm?" came the response, as Cas used a finger to wipe at a trail of scarlet.

"What did you mean when you said I called you?"

Castiel stopped his work and looked up at Dean, who became very aware of the way Cas was just holding his hand now that he had paused. He felt a small tug in his stomach and his face felt warm for a second, but he shrugged it away. He was focused on this question now. He wanted to know.

The angel looked away almost hesitantly, then back to Dean with a sort of apologetic expression. "Sometimes… you call me without realizing. I can hear your voice when you have nightmares much of the time."

Dean was still, looking at Cas and trying to force himself to keep his calm as he was struck with the realization of how much Castiel knew about how weak Dean really was. Did he really hear every pathetic nightmare and dark thought? If so, Castiel had heard things that were never meant to leave Dean's mind. Things he wouldn't even tell to Sammy on his worst day. He didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. But Castiel had more to add.

"I hear a lot of what you think, Dean."

"Well that's embarrassing," Dean joked, but as soon as the mumbled words were out, Dean wasn't even fooling himself. There was no humor in his voice. Only the weak energy of someone trying to pretend to be in the mood to be telling jokes.

"Dean." Cas's voice was rough, and so full of something that Dean instinctively looked up into Cas's eyes to see what it was that had suddenly sparked in the angel. Cas's hand tightened a little around Dean's, but he forced himself not to wince this time.

"Cas, are you alright?"

"No." The response was blunt and low in Cas's voice, and his eyes were sadder than usual. Dean was uncomfortable, and he was about to pull away and say that you know what, he'd pull through, and that Cas could go. But Castiel had more to say.

"I hear what you think of yourself and what you wish for. I cannot understand, Dean. Why would you want to end your life?"

Dean stared at the angel with a painfully shocked expression, startled into silence. Castiel sounded irritated, like he was trying to grasp at a concept and he just couldn't get it. The annoyance began to drift into sadness, something else.

"I am trying to help you, Dean. You seem to see something different than I do when you look at yourself, and it is hard to watch you. You are not worthy of death, Dean. You have purpose here. You are simply… broken. But you can be helped. Do not push me away."

Dean tried to tug his hand away from Cas's because this was the start of it, goddammit, he was slipping and if he didn't stop now he wouldn't be able to at all. His breathing was starting to ache as the pinpricks came back to his eyes. But Cas wouldn't let go. And he wouldn't shut up.

"You are not what you think you are, Dean. You are a beautiful example of a human."

Beautiful. Dean's mind conjured up so many responses to that, the vanguard being, "Beautiful? Yeah, I'm drop dead gorgeous." He also pictured Sam laughing at his brother being called "beautiful" by an angel. But instead he just looked at Castiel. His little emotional party from before Cas had arrived here was regaining power. He could only hold it back for so long. By now his throat was too tight for words so he shook his head a little as his vision began to blur and swim with the tears he was trying too hard to hold back. He was losing, he was going to lose it, and he was about to pass the point of no return.

"I don't just mean you, Dean. Your soul is one of the most beautiful I have encountered in my lifetime."

With that, Dean tilted his head back and gave what he intended to be a small laugh of "yeah, right", but instead he made a small choking sound and his chest heaved a little, letting a tear slip down his cheek and away into the air. He watched it fall, the smile fading from his lips.

"So forgive me if I do not understand why you would want to destroy yourself." The hurting frustration was back in Cas's voice. "I wish you could see the beauty of your soul."

Dean didn't know what to do or how to respond. He didn't know if he was angry or devastated or elated or infatuated. So many emotions rose in his chest, and his mind was buzzing and his heart was aching and hurting, and he finally decided this moment could maybe be salvaged with some sarcasm and so he said in a tightened, thin, strained voice, "And now to tie that all up, you're gonna kiss it all better, right?"

Cas looked at Dean's painful face, his clenched jaw, his red-rimmed eyes, shining like crystals because of the tears filling them, nearly overflowing, and he could feel the tension in the man's chest as he tried in one last lurch of despair to hold the pieces of himself together.

"Yes."

And he raised Dean's hand to his lips and kissed it gently, just below the bloody knuckles.

"Dean Winchester, you are beautiful."

That was it. The dam burst and Dean's sobs came hard and fast, spreading outward from his heart to push through his whole body, but he couldn't look away from Cas as the angel kissed gently around each knuckle, because no one had ever treated him so carefully or lovingly. Castiel looked up with his shining blue eyes, filled with endless affection, and moved in closer to the counter Dean sat on. He wrapped his arms around Dean's waist and gingerly pulled him down off the porcelain sink counter so that they were both standing now, intimately close, every part of them pressing together gently, and softly kissed the other man's cheek as Dean stood there, tears silently streaming down his face. He clutched onto the lapels of Cas's trenchcoat with desperate hands, pinned between their two chests. He closed his eyes tight, almost as if he was in pain, and let Castiel kiss his tears into nonexistence. And while he concentrated on the feeling of Castiel's lips on his skin, Dean wasn't even that surprised, because he thought that maybe he'd known this was going to happen for a while now.

And after what felt like hours had passed, just as Dean ran out of tears and his closed eyes burned tiredly beneath his lids, he opened them and Castiel was gone, and Dean was left in the bathroom with a half wrapped hand and a tearstained face. His breathing caught in his throat and he felt light all of a sudden. He felt like his heavy heart was emptied of a lot of weight he'd been carrying for a while. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried like that, or if he'd ever cried like that. And in his mind… Dean closed his eyes.

Quiet.

He moved a little and suddenly came to the realization that the ground was clean, and turned around to see the mirror put back together, and his own tear-streaked face and pink and shiny eyes staring back at him.

"You son of a bitch," he smiled a little and talked in a stuffy voice, under his breath. "Guess you have some mojo left after all."

Dean looked at himself again in the mirror, tears and cuts and all, and for the first time he thought that maybe for a second he caught a glimpse of what Castiel saw in him.


End file.
